I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who attended the rally to save the Dacula library. Nearly 500 community residents--men, women, boys and girls--responded to the grassroots call of the Dacula Business Association to rally for keeping our library branch open. The intent of the rally is to call attention to the need to seek system-wide solutions to system-wide problems, and to keep all library branches open including the not-yet-open Hamilton Mill branch. I think you sent the proper message to the Library Board of Trustees and to the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners.
You send a powerful message by coming out on a rainy Saturday to show your support for the library system and the Dacula branch in particular. You and nearly 6,000 others have joined the FaceBook group dedicated to this citizen protest, and more than 2,000 have signed the petitions to keep the Dacula branch open. You are to be congratulated.
As you may know, the Business Association has received documents under the Freedom of Information Act that shows the some Library Board members and library staff have been discussing the Dacula closure and two more branch closures at least since July 2009, having private meetings with the Commission Chairman, the library board Chairman, and other Gwinnett County staff members trying to garner Commission support for this closure(s). And at the same time keeping those discussions from the public--and what is worse--from the District Commissioner, Mike Beaudreau, and the District Library Board member, Phillip Saxton. Those documents show that the Dacula branch is to be permanently closed on November 14, 2009, and that they plan to close both the Buford branch and the Snellville branch on February 27, 2010. I call on the citizens of Buford and Snellville to join with the Dacula community to resist these closures.
Please plan to be at the Library Board meeting at 6:30 PM on September 22, 2009 at the Five Forks branch to show your support of finding system-wide solutions to system-wide problems. So far Commissioners Beaudreau, Nasuti, and Kenerly have expressed their desires for the Library Board to find solutions that do not result in any library branch closures. They know as I do that once you close a library it probably will never reopen!
Keep the pressure on. Save the Dacula branch, and in doing so, you may also save the library branch that you use!
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